Web Extra: Living at Odds With the Supernatural

In the “How Does it Feel?” feature in the November issue of Boca magazine, Tim Yancey describes his harrowing childhood living in a haunted Lake Worth property with an abusive father. Just in time for Halloween, we bring you more stories and insights from Yancey’s supernatural experiences. Turn down the lights, and read on.

Yancey: “You’re laying in bed, and you better be awake, because you know what’s coming, so you better be paying attention. This thing would make noises in our room, slide things around, knock things over, get us in trouble. Because now dad’s pissed off. This goes on all night. Now you’ve got to get up in the morning and try to be a human being and function in a school setting. My teacher would let me sleep. They had a janitor named Tony who used to come out and talk me out of the car. Sometimes he couldn’t.

“These things…they begin to bend the lines of what reality is. You see somebody, a shadow walk past the window at night, and you look out and there’s nothing there. And then the shadow comes by again. It’s a slow progression of events, and as a family, you begin to isolate yourselves. You think, I must be crazy, my dad’s screaming at me, he’s telling me this is my fault, that I’m a bad kid. Now you’re not talking to each other. This thing does that: It creates all the perfect conditions for it to thrive and fester on dark energy.

“My dad passed away in 2000. My mom was living there by herself. She would have something pounding on her bedroom door in the middle of the night. She’d be sitting at the kitchen table and hear footsteps coming down the stairs. She’d hear sounds at night of what sounded like our house being torn apart, TVs falling down, glass smashing, things pounding on the door. And when she would finally have the nerve to open up the door, the house was fine. It was all psychological.

“[Cleansing the house] is a process that took months. It starts with a conversation, with family coming together, a lot of prayer, a lot of positive energy, going to Walmart and buying every “Live Laugh Love” sign they have, pets—if you want unconditional love, get a dog. Having conversations with the house that ‘My family lives here now; there’s no room for this in our lives.’ Continuous house blessings, becoming affiliated with a church, becoming a chaplain, learning what positive and negative spirit is, bringing friends, introducing the idea of laughter to a house that’s never seen it.

“I’ve been blessed to have a voice in the paranormal community. I was discouraged when all the big ghost-hunter shows came out, that they didn’t want to go down that path. It was like, ‘Yes, your house is haunted, congratulations, bye!’ When I take a case, I cancel plans for next two weeks, and stay at a hotel at my own expense. It costs me about $2,000 every time I take on a case.

“[At our house], even to this day, there will be a chair spin around, a door close, a shadow here and there. You’ve got to stand it down. And that’s hard work.”